The Republicans are having trouble coming up with sane, credible candidates who can win.

But they aren't stepping forward because they are, well, sane and credible.

This includes Jeb, the right Bush at the right time with the wrong last name. Jeb is holding out for 2016, when there will be no incumbent.

You know the Republicans are in trouble when a Harris poll showed Donald Trump was tied with Mitt Romney as the preferred GOP candidate after coming out with his birther platform.

The Dow is close to 12,500, hiring is up, unemployment is down, foreign investors are still buying our debt, and the angry people at rallies are getting boring. It's just hard to stay that fired up about the stimulus.

Next year the country should be in much better shape than it was in 2008. Housing should have stabilized. Unemployment could be below 8 percent. Inflation will be on the horizon, but not here yet.

ObamaCare is a political problem but becomes less of one as time goes on. This recession has driven home the fear of losing medical coverage.

Obama can play off that fear quite well.

The tea party is turning into Frankenstein's monster. It will be powerful enough to dictate presidential primary elections. And it will be strident enough to turn off voters in a general presidential election.

A recent CNN poll found 32 percent of people have a favorable view of the tea party, compared with 47 percent who do not. That is a big reversal from earlier.

Not helping are heavy-handed politics in key states. Republican governors Scott Walker of Wisconsin, John Kasich of Ohio and our own Rick Scott are sinking in the polls. They are turning public-employee unions into sympathetic victims. The fight against excessive benefits was a sure winner for them, and they botched it by going too far.

Ohio and Florida are the two most important swing states in a presidential election. Kasich and Scott might as well be on Obama's payroll this campaign season.

Not that he will need them.

I saw where television ratings for Donald Trump's show, "The Apprentice," are up.

This means his "Obama Is A Muslim Born in Kenya"gig is working for him.

Can you imagine the Republican debates? We'll have Trump ranting about birth certificates and Michele Bachmann explaining how all those Africans dragged off the slave ships in chains arrived as equals.

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty was supposed to be the candidate for thinking Republicans who wanted an alternative to Mitt Romney.

But then Pawlenty's handlers apparently told him he needed to be more macho. Now his official portrait is a makeover based on the Brawny paper-towel guy. The Minneapolis Star Tribune ran a side-by-side comparison. It's hilarious.

Pawlenty also disclosed in his book how he likes to watch hockey fights. Maybe he'll try shooting a moose.